Naturally it has escaped the attention of mainstream media…
But, the fact is that two Kiwi IT companies are still in, and contributing to, the world’s largest IT project – the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope. (See a press release here).
Thousands of radio telescopes to be built in Southern Africa and Australia between 2018 and 2024 will monitor and survey space, producing vast amounts of data.
It will require real-time analysis of 120 terabytes per second – the equivalent of streaming one million high definition movies at once.
This is a massive Big Data project, and will require new developments in both hardware and software.
A team led by Open Parallel including Catalyst IT engineers has devised and delivered the initial version of the Software Development Plan for how participants in the project will develop software and/or firmware to achieve design goals established for the SKA.
Now, Open Parallel’s director, Oamaru-based (yes, you’ve read that correctly) Nicolas Erdody has also been the inspiration and driver behind three Multicore World conferences (now in its fourth consecutive edition – Feb 2015, Wellington). These assemblies of global IT heavyweights are looking how to take advantage of massive computing power available through multicore computers (where there’s many many processors on one chip).
So far no one has effectively cracked how to write the parallel programs (coding) that takes advantage of this power.
But, by being part of the SKA project, Open Parallel and Catalyst have positioned themselves to both learn, along with others, and ride the inevitable wave of parallel programming, big data, cloud and green computing, and many more state-of-the-art technologies.
So what?
Well, if it comes to pass, there will be a huge opportunity for New Zealand to be at the forefront of what will be a whole new basket of knowledge and technologies around multicore and programming for them.
The opportunities for our IT sector(s) to be ride this parallel computing wave will be immense – way bigger than the movie industry, with much more potential to branch into different fields.
Naturally, Erdody and Catalyst IT managing director Don Christie aren’t part of SKA solely as their contribution to knowledge about our universe.
But they are taking a longterm view, positioning their own companies to be part of the knowledge creation for the project, and clearly identifying themselves as clever and competent operators in an ever-expanding field.
It is doubtful that either of them have any clear idea of where their involvement will lead.
However, their leadership and vision will in the near future be of immense benefit to our country. After all, what computer programmer wouldn’t want to live in New Zealand to be part of both SKA and ongoing developments in multicore and parallel programming.
Not that the government or media would have a clue.
It’s not something that has a photo opportunity.
It also requires the ability to think.
